March 3, 2025
It’s off. For now.
Business owners – there’s another change to the Beneficial Ownership Information requirement that you need to know about. I know – I am just as tired of this as you are and I know it’s a lot to keep track of, but I don’t know what else to tell you. The Trump Administration has made another change.
According to this new announcement from the Treasury Department – the Trump Administration says it will not enforce the penalties associated with not filing the BOI. That means you won’t incur the nearly 6-hundred dollar a day fine for not filing.
Now – it’s very important – this announcement does not say you don’t have to file the BOI to the financial crimes enforcement network – or FinCEN. It just says the Trump Administration will not enforce the penalties you would receive for not filing the BOI *and they say they will be proposing a new rule that would narrow the scope of who has to file. The Treasury Department says their intention is to make it so only foreign companies would need to report the BOI not companies with American owners.
But here’s the thing – that’s not what the Corporate Transparency Act says. That law was passed back in 2021 by both Democrats and Republicans to help the US government track down people who are trying to hide or benefit from shell companies or other opaque ownership business structures. The whole point of the law was to provide greater transparency of legal entities so the government can root out illegal activities that are being funneled through those legal entities. And the law is pretty specific. It does not say only foreign companies have to file the BOI it says almost all business doing business in the United States have to file.
Now – critics have been saying for years that this law was overly broad and would hurt small business who are just struggling to get through their daily obligations but those who support the law say this action by the trump administration will make the United States less safe and will make the US a magnet for foreign criminals, drug cartels, fraudsters and terrorist organizations who want to launder money through this country to fund their efforts.
The president himself disagrees. He posted this to his social media yesterday calling the BOI requirement “outrageous and invasive” and even called it an “economic menace” for American business.
It’s unclear how long it’ll take the treasury department to enact it’s rule to make the BOI requirement only for foreign companies doing business in the United States. Usually that takes months or up to a year. But chances are – when it’s done, it’ll be challenged in court because of the contradiction with the Corporate Transparency Act.
Read Treasury Department notice here.
Read Trump’s Truth Social post here.
